Magic and Loss

Please indulge me as I take a moment to pay tribute to my mom in this space. Sonya Shashoua Rozansky passed away November 2.

Whatever modest insights about the industry I provide here as editor of Inside Reference Data, I have been able to bring forth because of the curiosity and inquisitive nature that she passed on to me.

Whenever I visited, she always wanted to talk about what was in the news and what was happening in politics. That's probably why I became a journalist in the first place. She was looking for insights into why things are the way they are, in any field of interest. Some things you learn about a person after they go, and one thing I learned about her is that she took every adult education offering given at her synagogue.

But I already knew, however, what a voracious reader and media consumer she was. I was surprised to find that a book I'd given her about the UK royal family (she was definitely an Anglophile) during one of her hospital stays in September had been nearly halfway finished, judging by the bookmarks left placed in it. That was with less waking hours to spend on such things as her energy waned.

In life, Sonya Rozansky was proud of her education at Girls High in Philadelphia and Temple University. College did not come easy to her—she had to work and attend part-time over the course of seven years to finish. She wanted her children to do better and obtain advanced degrees. My sister achieved that years ago, but I only just finished my master's this year and I am very happy that I was able to complete that and have her see me "walk" at graduation in May (see gallery picture above).

In Rabbi Daniel Grossman's eulogy for mom, he spoke about how much she marveled at all the interesting and compelling things there are to explore and experience in this life. That sense of magic—or at least amusement—is something I try to bring to these columns, however dry the subject matter might seem at first glance. That magic is what I think I'll miss most. And I'll have her spirit in mind in everything I do, here and elsewhere.